Sheri Speede holds Dorothy for her grieving family, including friend Nama and surrogate son Bouboule. Dorothy in 1999 (inset) when she was chained to a tree to amuse guests at an African hotel.monica szczupider/ ida-africa.org(inset)

Dorothy — the grande dame of chimpazees, whose picture this week became a worldwide phenomenon — always had the power to move both people and animals.

When she died, at the wizened age of 49, the other chimpanzees of the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon gathered in reverential silence. The amazing picture of their human-like funeral respects, which appear in November’s issue of National Geographic and was reprinted in The Post, moved many to write and call in awe, a sign that our simian cousins share our deep sadness at a lost loved one.

The story behind Dorothy’s extraordinary life is just as heartwrenching, her rescuers say.

Dorothy was orphaned after hunters illegally killed her mother in the African bush. She was captured and sold to a hotel amusement park in Douala, Cameroon. Tethered at the neck by a six-foot chain tied to the base of a tree, she became untouchable. Tourists would toss cigarettes at her to smoke and made her drink beer. She was violent and angry — yet there was something in her eyes that called out to you.

“I was completely in love with her from the time I met her,” Sheri Speede, 50, the American vet who founded the Chimpanzee Rescue Center, told The Post in a phone interview from the West African nation. Speede had founded the mission to save the endangered chimp, whose numbers have dwindled from 2 million to a shocking 150,000.

“She was so starved for affection,” she recalled of their early meetings in 1999. “She would get all excited when I would visit her at the hotel. She was obese from eating fatty palm nuts. I would bring her fruit.”

By the next year, Speede had negotiated the release of Dorothy and another chimpanzee held by the hotel, Nama. But when the owners reneged at the last minute, the hardheaded Mississippian fought back. She asked the federal police to aid her. They agreed. The mission was top secret until the morning of the raid.

Seven uniformed officers held the owners at gunpoint during the standoff. Speede and her posse of technicians freed the two apes and whisked them away for a grueling nine-hour ride back to the jungle sanctuary. “The day we came to get her, she knew we were there to rescue her,” she says.

But after enduring so much human cruelty, Dorothy had problems settling in at the 200-acre rehabilitation center.

“She was struggling to find her place. She was bullied,” Speede says.

Then, in 2002, a “misfit boy” named Bouboule, orphaned when his mother was killed by hunters, arrived.

“He never seemed to get enough love and was very clingy, and we put him in the group and very quickly Dorothy adopted him as her son,” the vet says. “She never had a chance to have a baby and they were inseparable. By protecting him she grew in status.”

Bouboule gained so much confidence that he and another alpha male Jacky vied for the top spot.

On Sept. 22, 2008, at the age of 49, Dorothy fell sick and died of heart complications.

The other chimps “were touching her, caressing her, smelling her. They didn’t want to leave her side,” said photographer Monica Szczupider, 31, a volunteer who captured a moment few humans have had the privilege to see and one most would be hard-pressed to believe.

“They had all seen their mothers slaughtered. They knew what death was,” she says. “They are usually vocal and rambunctious. When we brought Dorothy around in a wheelbarrow they soon had their arms around each other. Nama stared.”

Seen in the photo is adopted son Bouboule, her friend Nama, and Jacky, the alpha male, is in the center of the photo, his head held highest.

“What was incredible to me was how quiet they were. They didn’t take their eyes off her. They were silent,” says Szczupider.

Neither Speede or Szczupider say they were surprised at the chimps’ human-like grief. “Humans and chimps are so similar genetically. We are closer to chimps than chimps are to gorillas,” Speede explained, adding that she ultimately hopes to rehabilitate the orphaned chimps and return them to the jungle.

Szczupider adds, “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t affected by this photo. It shows how emotionally complex these animals are and that we aren’t the only ones who have feelings.”

The center hopes the photo raises awareness of the chimps’ plight and In Defense of Animals (ida-africa.org), an Oregon-based non-profit founded by Speede.